LIVERPOOL, England — Three years ago, two of the most talked about young players in Europe faced off for the first time as senior professionals in the Champions League. On that night it was Ryan Gravenberch who got the better of Jude Bellingham as Ajax routed Borussia Dortmund 4-0 at the Johan Cruyff Arena.
The duo are now with different clubs — Gravenberch at Liverpool; Bellingham at Real Madrid — and will share a pitch again on Wednesday night as their teams battle it out in the revamped Champions League at Anfield. But a lot has changed since 2021.
Both can be considered among Europe’s elite midfielders, but their respective journeys have been wildly different. Bellingham’s ascent has been swift and meteoric; Gravenberch’s has been less straightforward.
Had Liverpool not ended their pursuit of Bellingham ahead of the 2023 summer window, there is every chance Gravenberch’s transfer from Bayern Munich that same summer would not have materialised. But though it took the Dutchman some time to settle, his evolution has helped propel Liverpool to new heights this term.
“He had something special about him”
Born in Amsterdam, Gravenberch spent much of his childhood striving to emulate his older brother, Danzell. In an interview with The Guardian, the 22-year-old credited Danzell with “toughening him up” during street football matches and the pair both came through the ranks at the Ajax academy.
While the older Gravenberch sibling has since gone on to represent 13 different clubs at various levels across his career so far — his latest stop is FC Den Bosch in the Dutch second tier — it was always clear his younger brother was destined for the top.
“When he was about four years old, we used to take Ryan to play football on a Sunday morning and playing against boys who were seven or eight years old, he was always the best player,” Gravenberch’s father, Ryan Sr., tells ESPN. “Me and my wife would always look at each other and be like ‘Huh?’ We couldn’t believe it. Then, as he got older, we started to see he had a certain skillset that just wasn’t normal. From a very early age, we could tell he was a special boy.”
It was a similar story when Gravenberch began playing for local club AVV Zeeburgia — widely dubbed the “royal supplier” due to their track record for producing professional Dutch players, including former Manchester United defender Timothy Fosu-Mensah and ex-PSV Eindhoven winger Luciano Narsingh — and when he joined Ajax, where he shared an age group with Netherlands internationals Kenneth Taylor and Brian Brobbey.
“From the first time he stepped on the pitch, you could see he was a good player,” Peter van der Veen, who began coaching Gravenberch at Ajax under-15 level, tells ESPN. “He had something special about him. At Ajax, we worked back then with mentors and I was one of his, so that means you have more contact with the player and try to help develop him.
“He stood out even as a kid. After three months at U15 level, he was already too good for the team so we tried to challenge him by moving him up to a higher age group where he would be playing against the bigger guys and still trying to be the best.
“Sometimes he would even go two age groups higher, but still he could cope with the pressure. Even against the bigger players, he was so hard to get off the ball when he was in possession.”
